Creativity and heritage II

There is a tension at the heart of current debate on the value of culture. It is focused on the relations between culture and economics and the different trade-offs that are involved making calculations about the value of culture as a product as well as its modes of circulation and consumption. The debate is not a new one by any means. However, in the European Union it has been increasingly shaped by the influence of contemporary thinking about the ‘creative economy’. As culture becomes increasingly ‘economised’ and tied to questions of national growth and competition in the global economy this raises the question of how we might now think differently, taking a critical distance from present orthodoxy.